Gender, Identity & Reproduction Social Perspectives [Hardcover]

Gender, Identity and Reproduction draws on a variety of perspectives relevant to an understanding of reproduction across the life-course. Through a consideration of the representation of reproductive identities and experiences, the book highlights difference and diversity in relation to contemporary reproductive choices. The book focuses on women's and men's experiences of agency, control and negotiation within the context of cultural, medical, political, theoretical and lay ideologies of the reproductive process in contemporary Western societies.List of Tables and Figures Prologue Notes on Contributors Introducing Gender, Identity & Reproduction; S.Earle & G.Letherby PART 1: REPRESENTING REPRODUCTION Introduction Representations of Motherhood; K.Woodward 'Loving Fathers or Deadbeat Dads': The Crisis of Fatherhood in Popular Culture; T.Freeman 'Battle of the Gametes': Cultural Representations of Medically Assisted Conception; G.Letherby Summary, Questions for Discussion and Further Reading PART 2: REPRODUCTIVE ENCOUNTERS: COOPERATION AND NEGOTIATION Birth Matters: Learning From My Past - A Midwifery for the Future; B.K.Rothman 'Your Dignity is Hung up at the Door': Pakistani and White Women's Experiences of Childbirth; A.Bowes & T.M.Domokos The Quintessential Female Act?: Learning About Birth; J.Purkis Dutch Midwives: The Difference Between Image and Reality; E.van Teijlingen Is Breast Best? Breastfeeding, Motherhood & Identity; S.Earle Summary, Questions for Discussion and Further Reading PART 3: REPRODUCTIVE IDENTITIES: EXCLUSION AND RESISTANCE Introduction Woe the Women: DES Mothers and Daughters; D.Davidson 'I didn't think much of his bedside manner but he was very skilled at his job': Medical Encounters in Relation to 'Infertility'; G.Letherby 'Cutting Out Motherhood': Childfree, Sterilised Women; A.Campbell Changing Women: An Analysis of Difference and Diversity in Women's Accounts of Their Experiences of Menopause; G.Wadsworth & E.Green Sulƒ¬